TV

We often watch TV and it is running most of the time, even if we are not watching. The channel is a mixture of news, reports and documentations and music, mostly in Kinyarwanda, but also with parts in French and English. In contrast to what they were watching in Ghana, there are no soaps here, but almost everything is educative and informative. They advertise not for particular products, but for companies, universities and private school programmes. There is even something, maybe not advertisement but awareness rising programmes, about the ID card, ministries and hygiene. And of course, repeated countless times, advertisement for tigo, mtn and airtel. After the first second, I know which one of those it is. Many adverts are in fact songs. The programme is therefore full of music. I especially like the coca-cola song. Adding to that, there are the music videos. Mostly religious songs, but also other songs that praise the country or promote reconciliation. Of course, most of the time I don’t know what they are singing about, but from time to time there are subtitles or Beatrice tells me what it is about. Once there was a documentation or a report or an advert - I am not sure - about the national police. They, too, had their own song. Interesting are the news. First, they are shown in Kinyarwanda - Amakuru - then in French - Le journal ce soir - and lastly in English. In the bottom right corner, a woman translates everything in sign language. It is the same studio, the speakers read from the same iPad, the same stories are told with the same pictures. In some reports, when they are talking in Kinyarwanda, you can still hear the French explanations in the background. The weather forecast is much less interesting. It is always the same. But for some reason, they always show the temperature in other cities in Africa like Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and Kampala and in the rest of the world, in Asia, Europe and South America, sometimes Australia. Good to see that it is raining in some other parts of the world.